Replacing the traditional Bhattis (dryer) to dry the cardamom was very difficult at the earlier stage as the previous attempts was all but failure and the farmers had to pay for the price of the burned and useless cardamom. Afte the visit to Sikkim-Silgudi and Birtamod, the cardamom farmers were convinced that the new drying technology yielded higher price in the market and also saved fuelwood. The project demonstrated two drying technolgies i.e.- improved bhattis and Solar hybrid dryer. But the farmers prefered improved Bhatties to Solar hybrid dryer despite the solar hybrid dryer yielded better quality cardamom.

The efficieny of three dryers were also performed. In the traditional dryer, 1200Kg of fresh fuelwood to dry 400 kg cadamom was required where as for the improved and hybrid solar dryers, only 360 Kg of dry fuelwood was required. The time taken in improved bhattis was approximately 16-17 hr where as for the traditional bhattis, it as 24 hours. Per unit cost of production in traditional, improved and solar hybrid dryer were NRS14, 11 and 22.6 respectively. The increased per unit cost of production in hybrid solar is one has to batch fed the cardamom (28 kg at one time). Market price per Kg offered for the three products were NRS 125, 175 and 180 respectively. The colour and the smell of the cardamom produced from traditional bhattis were black and smokey where as the same were purple and pleasant form improved and solar hybrid dryer.

The fuel efficiency of the systems showed that the drying of 400 kg of cardamom yielded 2196 Kg of CO2 from traditional Bhattis where as it was only 659 kg in improved and solar hybrid dryer. Till now 4 improved dryer were intalled and the demand for the improved bhattis are increasing.

The project also supported the cardamom farmers to cure the Phurke Chirke viral disease in cardamom.